About a week and a half ago, I took Russell to the psychiatrist. Apparently we are not her typical client. Russell is our biological child, he lives with both parents, has biological siblings (one yet to be born) and I did not smoke or drink while I was pregnant with Russell or any other child for that matter. In fact when she was asking me about the smoking thing when going over family history and Russell's normal birth, Russell said to her "Smoking is bad for you; it turns your lungs black." And his tone was one of 'my mom is not bad and how dare you even ask'. It was pretty cute.
I had to fill out a lot of paperwork beforehand and I brought in examples of Russell's schoolwork, report cards dating when the issues started, a progress report showing his difficulty now, time lines of all the speech and language evaluations Russell has ever done, example of our behavior/chore chart at home, anything and everything I could think of to show what is going on with Russell. So we were reviewing all of it (I think she was a little overwhelmed by everything I brought) and Russell is just being Russell - chatting about things in and out of context, playing with his hands, getting up and examining things all over the office. She is watching him the whole time and carrying on a conversation with me, sometimes asking Russ questions and then after about 20 minutes she asks, "I am seeing Russell how you see him at home?" Yes. "Is this what he is like at school?" At school he knows to stay in his seat or he gets his name on the board, so he can control some of it. Then she says "You have really done most of the work for me, let's talk therapies."
I am thinking, that's it??? 20 minutes with her and that's it, she's decided??? So, I ask, "Really, that's it? Do you think it's ADHD?" Yes. "You don't think it is immaturity or anything developmental / language processing disorder related?" No. Then she tells me if I hadn't told her that Russ was in speech or language therapy, she wouldn't have guessed that he was. She said she could see some of his language issues - talking out of context and syntax errors - but not enough to the point that he'd be in therapy at school or privately.
Okay then!
We are already doing everything at home with his behavior / chore chart, rewards and consequences that needs to be done. Russell's teacher already makes accommodations for him in class, so the next step is some type of medication to see what results we get from that. She wanted him to see a pediatric cardiologist to make sure his heart is healthy and has no structural abnormalities. He even had an EKG, which was very exciting for a 6 yr old who likes science! Of course, Russ's ticker is in good shape (he has minor benign murmur that he has had since birth), so he was cleared!
We are trying a medication that you sprinkle in applesauce, (no pill swallowing), in the morning and it is an extended release med, so only once per day. Today is our third day on it. He started over the weekend and we noticed a couple of differences, but we aren't supposed to 'judge' it until he's taken it for 2 weeks. And then we go back to Dr. Chason to check in and make any adjustments if needed.
This certainly isn't an easy road to take, but I think I said before, we just have take this journey one day at a time.
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